My Kitchen smelled like wet wool and artifical grape

Some of you may know that I've been spinning yarn. I'm new to it, so unlike knitting which I would argue that I'm very proficient at everything I make spinning wise is new and exciting and fabulous.
And for some odd reason I feel a need to dye the stuff I spin, even though usually it's already dyed. I'm attracted to pretty colors. So recently I spun (and plied!) this
Into This
It's about 3oz of Merino spun from roving top in camel from indigo crane fiber . One of my swap buddies recently sent me a how to dye yarn with kooaid tutorial, which is a cheap way to get a fiber fix. I'm all for that. I soaked the yarn to set the twist.
This picture is more accurate to the color, the other one had too much light. I put it in a tupperware container with some vinegar and two packets of grape kool-aid.
Microwaved it on and off for two minutes at a time for about 20 minutes. And the end result was this
I forgot to take a picture of the balls, this is just the leftover. And then I knit it up with size nine needles, loosely following a pattern and got this!



My lovely roommate is modeling the hat for me, because unfortunately I knit it too small to fit my rather large head. Sad day. She is also planning on stealing it from be because she likes it. And well, it doesn't really fit me. So I guess I have to let her.

Yart blogging done. Chinese homework start!

BTW: For those who don't know Yarn + art = Yart!

Yart blogging

I'm inspired. I am going to try and take more pictures and talk more about my knitting. That includes blogging about it here. All my Yarting (Yarn +art) should be shown off, after all it is apart of my cultural production is it not?

Cultural Production

So I've been thinking lately as to what this term "Cultural Production" actually means. As a person I assume I produce it everyday. It's very odd to think of it as something that you produce sort of whether you mean to or not as opposed to something that is deliberate. Like writing a book, that would be a purposeful deliberate cultural production, instead though everything that we do could be some sort of cultural production. Meaning the blog that I kept on High school.... That shit is going to be there forever, ew.

I suppose I don't have fully formed opinions about this yet. I'll get back to you on it.

When someone says they won't judge, they just mean out loud

So I've been thinking lately about perceptions. How our first judgment for a person is not when we introduce ourselves or when we shake their hands. How many things are in a person that we perceive without even trying. The few that come off the top of my head are race and gender. But we also perceive class to a certain extent, we probably even try to do intelligence. The threshold then for what we perceive is pretty ridiculous. Even the setting in which we meet the person takes in our initial judgment of the person. This I think is all in general knowledge.

What I'm really curious though is how much people think of me is perceived and how much people actually know me. I realize that this is a selfish statement, but it does go on the other way. If I think I know someone really well, do I actually know them? or is it merely what I perceive of them. Then again the world is how we see it, so what we know about someone is what we think of them.

So now in sort of a wonky train of thought, is my personality of what I perceive of myself? huh?

Things That Should be considered Chinese sterotypes but probably are not that well known

--> A Love for the movie titanic and singing My heart will go on at any possible acceptable moment.

--> If you are Chinese American or another hyphenated Chinese you love Savage Garden specifically the song Truly Madly Deeply.

--> Jay Chou is hot, you probably have a pin or a picture of him somewhere you keep in a treasured spot.

In Light of My "New" Voice

So since I just made a post about how I am going to post more about the things I feel instead of just random posts about random things.

Today during my 'Cultural Production of Asian American Women' class when were talking about the way both Women and Asians have both been ostracized in the US society. And while we were thinking about it I came to an interesting conclusion: My biggest insecurity isn't that I am Asian, it isn't that I am a women, it's not that I'm getting my degree from a State school. It's the fact that I'm fat.

I think it's because I don't really think too much about the fact I'm Asian, or rather that i don't think too much about Asian being all too different from white. I suppose since I've known nothing else and I've never been made fun of for being Asian. And as for being a women, I suppose I don't feel I've ever been discriminated against it. but when you have a mother who is constantly telling you that the reason you couldn't find a job is because you're fat, or you can't get a boyfriend because you're fat that's really what sticks with you.

And I think the amount of fat shaming in our society is appalling. People view things as being a women or being Chinese (Asian, you know) but being fat you know that's something you can change supposedly. and it's really interesting that we can talk about how we are marginalized in our society about such things. And then the thing I feel most insecure about is something that isn't considered academic, or had tons of literature written about it. And that ideas that we hold about weight and body image are very driven by the media and aren't considered apart of academic study. But really we have to accept that people are built differently.

Cause you know everyone is their own unique flower.

The fact of the matter is.

So it came to my attention the other day that my blog is nearly a year and a half old, and I really haven't posted that much. It I think it is because I'm afraid that people will read it.

Ironically (although I seem to have problems with irony much like Alanis so maybe only coincidentally) I used to post a lot on my blog on highschool because I was desperate to know what people thought of what I thought and for people to pay attention to me. But really do I want to pour my heart and soul out on this thing because I've read my High school blog, it is embarrassing.

But I've decided today that a blog is for writing in and I should be proud of my voice and not be afraid to post what i want to on it. Seems like I should already do that since I'm am outspoken in other parts of my life. So that's it I guess I'm going to try and blog more, and not just about what I do, but really how I feel, maybe I will even post some fiction, (although probably not).

So this is me posting about posting and about how I want to flip convention the bird, not that I don't do that already or something.

All I can say,

So this weekend I fell back into the world of debate, if only for a little while. I judged some rounds, some really bad. Some REALLY REALLY BAD (seriously debate for stupid people?) Listened to some debates. Talked to some old debate friends. I got to judge the last policy round of the tournament though which was a good round, even though I squirreled (voted differently from the other two judges).

Out of this whole thing I've come to one conclusion. I'm really glad that I'm not in high school anymore. Seems silly but it's true, apparently once you get to a certain age you really are too old for some shit, and now i sound like a grumpy old grandma, damn kids playing their rap music, pull up your pants!

Look what I did!

So as some of you may know I've taken to spinning yarn on a spindle. Or at least trying to. On Sunday I finally completed my first reasonably decent piece of hand spun and decided to take my hand at dyeing yarn as well because I had some tea. I used my pomegranate green tea hoping it would turn purple or burgundy. But well it's brown. I I think it's lovely and smells really good.

See for yourself

There is a niche for everything.

So I was searching on Etsy for a spinning wheel, which I'm not going to buy because they are not cheap. I'm still terrible at spinning (although I've gotten better! I'll post soon) and quite honestly the spindle interests me, but the wheel I'm still so so on it.

But I did find this.

For those of you too lazy to click, it is a cup holder custom made to the spinning wheel you own. And that's not the only one, every possible wheel that I've heard of (and many that I haven't) this person has made a cup holder for all of these wheels. And they cost about $25 each. Crazy. It seems this etsy person has created a market for making cupholders for spinning wheels.

I guess if you have an idea, you should implement it.